Post-exercise recovery has become an important area in research due to the high demands placed on competitive athletes. Different recovery strategies are used by athletes during competition and training. For the competitive athlete it is important to maintain performances during competition and also to enhance performances during training. However, if the athlete fails to recovery from daily exhaustive training and competition, inadequate recovery may lead to poor performances, burn-out, sickness and even injuries. There is very little evidence available on the possible performance recovery effects of the use of water immersion during multi days of intensive endurance training. Theoretically, water immersion should aid the overall recovery process without any additional energy cost involved as with active recovery. The objective of this investigation was to determine whether water immersion (cold water vs. neutral) has any effects on the post-exercise recovery rate of competitive cyclists during 3 days of intensive endurance training and whether recovery with water immersion is more effective than active recovery. Seventeen competitive cyclists (mean ± SD age: 27.6 ± 5.94 years, weight: 78.8 ± 6.67 kg, height: 180.5 ± 4.42 cm VO2max: 49.8 ± 4.13 L.min-1.kg-1, and PPO: 352.6 ± 35.94 Watts) completed 3 days of intensive endurance cycling sessions. Cyclists were randomly assigned to either a 20 minute ice bath (IB) (n = 6, 11 ± 0.9oC), neutral bath (NB) (n = 6, 30 ± 0.6oC), or active recovery (AR) (n = 5; 81 ± 1.74% of HRLT ) which were performed directly after the training sessions on Day 1 and 2. Dependent variables such as anaerobic performance, creatine kinase concentrations (CK), c-reactive protein concentrations (CRP), blood lactate concentrations, muscle soreness (VAS) and perceived fatigue (POMS), and limb circumferences were measured prior to the training sessions at Day 1, 2 and 3. In addition, changes in exercise performances over the last 2 days were also assessed. There were significant increases over the three days in plasma [CK] (P < 0.05) and [CRP] (P < 0.001) demonstrating that muscle damage and inflammation occurred during and after the training sessions. However, there were no treatment or interaction effects observed for any of the dependent variables for any of the recovery interventions (P > 0.05). Blood [La] was significantly reduced on Day 2 for the IB group in comparison to the NB group (P < 0.05). A strong tendency was observed for [CK] when the IB and NB groups were combined (WG), indicating that AR had a strong tendency to enhance the recovery of [CK] in comparison to the WG (P = 0.05). Also, there were no significant time or interaction effects observed in % changes in performances for the last two 100km TTs between Day 2 and 3 for any of the recovery interventions (P > 0.05). These findings suggest that neither cold water, nor neutral water therapy, have more beneficial effects on post-exercise recovery rates compared to active recovery. Importantly, however, is that the cyclists` were able to maintain their performances over the three consecutive days, indicating that water therapy per se is not detrimental to endurance performance.
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